Community

I've noticed an interesting trend through my journal entries over the past month that anything with actual substance has been fairly cynical. Truth be told, I do have a cynical edge in my life that has yet to be fully worn down by the Holy Spirit; it's not exactly one of my favored characteristics. And apparently at 1AM and after reading both Adam's and Al's recent blog entries, I feel compelled to write about something that has more substance and is less critical of the world around me. It's time to scurry to my little thinking place and put out some reflections.

Manna is the bible study/discussion group that I'm taking under my wing in part with CCO co-worker (and consequently, whose family I live with) Andy Campbell at University of the Arts, and since I showed up this semester we've been going through a book that I am convinced ought to be mandatory reading material for anyone interested in the arts and happens to be a Christian. Needless to say, I'm very excited to finally talk to people about it who jive with the arts, since it's one thing to talk about it to non-arty people, and totally a different thing to talk about it with arty people. The book: It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God. Tonight's chapter (article) was written by David Giardiniere, and all about Community. Of course the article's slant is toward artists of all shapes and sizes, but reading about community reminds me about how passionate I am about community and belonging to a community.
As being made in imago dei, the image of God, means that human beings are inherently relational creatures. God is a relational being: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. He is the perfect and holy image that we have of unity and community being Three in One. God also seeks to have community and relationships with His creatures. It makes sense, then, that we would be relational; we are made to have community first with the Lord and also with other human beings. How beautiful it is when people come together with the same heart and purpose, to become a sort of family. As Christians, we are called to this.

Paul frequently talks about the individual Christian being part of a bigger community through the imagery of anatomy: we are all parts of the larger body. We are members, not in the sense of Status, but in the sense of Organs. It is vital for the "members" or organs of the human body to be working in community and unity wth the other organs of the body, while at the same time retaining its unique job and characteristics. For it cannot be so that an eye would decide to be a hand, or that a hand would decide to be a leg and neither can these things work independently from the rest of the body. You don't have to take an anatomy class to know that the human body just doesn't function that way. It is the same with us as believers in Jesus Christ. We need each other in order to encourage, build up, rebuke, pray for, challenge, and push each other towards God. I believe that this is primarily found in church communities.

This is something that has been on my mind for several weeks now, primarily because I currently feel at a loss as to where my place is in Philadelphia. I've lived here for about two months and I have yet to really find a solid, consistent group of individuals who can be my "transplant" family -- and I use the word transplant loosely, since I've moved on from the community I knew for four and a half years. I hunger and long for the sort of community I've just described above. And I do not use "hunger" and "long for" lightly. I need a church body to belong to, not for some trite fulfilment or simple satiation to be with people, but so that I can be encouraged, challenged, and pushed towards God.
The Lord has been good to me, however, in placing me in a city where I do know some people and He has also provided some awesome connections with people that have the potential to lead to very strong community. I have been very blessed to be around awesome people from time to time.

However that does not negate the fact that I still need to be integrated into a church. I'm unsure what my struggle up to this point has been, since I had been attending a younger church (Liberti Church) just up the street from me for a while before I actually moved here. February left me with barely any Sundays to explore other churches - so February was actually a little dreadful in some regards. Every time I thought about my need for community, a lump would quickly form in the pit of my throat; even now, there is an ache. This actually brings up a funny story: this past Sunday as I was ready to go to a different church, I discovered that my car was parked in. So, that left me with Liberti Church, which I have been unsure of going to all through February. All the way there, I had to pray and ask for a heart that would be open to what He would have for me there because it was clear I was going there for a reason that morning.
While the sermon was excellent and all about reliability and dependability (something I'd love to write more about later), I suppose the most striking thing was that one of the pastors listed some things that their church was all about. The funny part is that I wholly agreed with each of the things that Liberti is all about as a church, perhaps especially worship, community, and campus ministry.

Is this the community God has set up for me to be a part of? I'm not sure... but I do know that I had to also ask myself, "Why am I not going to this church? I agree with all these things." Perhaps, then, it is where I am meant to be integrated. Perhaps I should just bite the lip of my fears and submerge myself in this body of brothers and sisters and allow myself to be a part of a new community... because as surely as I live and breathe, I do think that I am afraid to start fresh. But despite that fear I know I need and hunger for it. I know how essential it is for me to be connected because I cannot function fully--as being made in the image of God--without that community and those relationships.

We shall see, I suppose. Prayerfully, the Lord will push me in the direction I need to go. I need to be pushed, face forward, so that all of my hesitancy is lost to the wind.

... And with that in mind, it is time for me to go to sleep.